


Gooseberry Troubleshooting

by dorothy812



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: something of a tribute, working in a call centre for a long time has given me an appreciation for their absurdity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 03:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20614445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy812/pseuds/dorothy812
Summary: His Grace, his Excellency, the Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch has an issue with his Gooseberry, and it is up to the excellent customer service team of the Unseen University Thaumatological Park to resolve it.





	Gooseberry Troubleshooting

Ankh-Morpork, city of a thousand colors. Or, more accurately, a thousand different shades of muck. Many an artist has attempted to capture its splendor, but none has quite succeeded. They usually give up at the mighty river Ankh, defeated by its sheer oily personality. Now look closer. Look past the rooftops, past the smudged windows. Upon the worn, slippery cobblestones, a pair of tiny feet is rushing to the Thaumatological Park of Unseen University[1].

It was, upon closer inspection, an imp. “Bingeley-bingeley! Bingeley-bingley-beep-beep!” it screamed at the top of its miniscule lungs, causing much larger people to jump out of its way reflexively. The people of Ankh-Morpork did not like to mess with magic. More often than not, it messed back.

When it reached the Thaumatological Park, it made its way through graduates, students, unfortunate interns and other, miscellaneous paper-pushers, and announced itself in the Product Support building. “Bingeley-bingeley-beeeep!” 

A small, bespectacled wizard locked eyes with the creature for but a moment, before turning aside, making himself look busy on his desk. His name was Billy Hovel. It was just like he had learned at the University, if you ignored someone as pointedly as you could, they would leave you alone and look for someone else to take their business to. The senior wizards had applied this tactic to him often and unfailingly, whenever he came to them with his concerns. Even so, Billy had managed to somehow acquire his Bachelor of Thaumatology and had been excited at the prospect of working on the most exciting hands-on developments the Unseen University had to offer. He was so excited in fact, that he had applied for every open position in the entire Park, and had immediately signed his 10-year long contract as Customer Support Specialist Team Leader. In his first few hours on the job, he had realized that he was Team Leader because there was no team. His training consisted of a number of incomprehensible user manuals, a handshake with the sales department, and a look of pity from the janitor.

Thus, Billy had come up with principles of his own, for his work. One, supporting the Thaumatological Park’s customers was not entirely mandatory, for they had to find him first. Two, if one actually found him, he did not need to make eye contact or listen to the issue. Three, if all else failed then he could always redirect them somewhere else, with confidence that the problem would be solved there. However, though all these options worked for humans[2], the one-track mind of an imp was not keen on following this protocol.

“Bingeley-bingeley beep! Emergency support call!”

The wizard said nothing for a long moment, acting as if the imp wasn’t there, turning a page on his book.

“’Scuse me!” it shouted at him, while climbing on his desk. “D’you work here?”

Billy looked around him, as if to spot someone else in the room. Then his eyes fell on the imp on his desk. “I’m a Mark 3 Gooseberry and I need fixin’!”

“If you’re a Mark 3 Gooseberry where’s the rest of you?” Billy asked, finding himself in the familiar waters of avoidance.

“It’s with Commander Vimes of the Watch!” the imp said smugly, which was an achievement for a creature you could squash with your hand, all while it tried to catch its breath. “He asked me what was wrong with me, and I didn’t know. So I told him I needed to perform a diagnostic.”

“And what’d you come here for?” Billy said carefully. No one had informed him about this. This was the first time an imp had actually made its way there, and it wanted to… To die agnostic? What did that have to do with him?

“You’re the one to perform the diagnostic, guv!”

Billy paled visibly. “What does the die-agnostic entail, exactly..?” he finally asked.

The imp looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “I dunno that, guv! You’re s’posed to be the Specialist here!”

Billy considered this. It did say so in his job description, but… no one had ever told him he was a Specialist. No one had ever seemed to trust him enough for that. Thus, part of him actually felt obligated to help this imp. He lifted a finger, gesturing for him to wait, and got lost in the shelves of books behind him. Finally, he emerged holding a tome that could easily be a murder weapon, and laid it heavily on the table. When the imp understood that this was not an attempt on its life, it heaved a sigh of relief, and instead focused on reading the letters on the front cover.

**Disogranizr 3.0 – Gooseberry User Manuel**

“Who’s Manuel, guv?”

“It’s how… It’s how you work.” He said, and leafed through the heavy book, looking through it for the die-agnostic. After a long while, he settled on a page, and read it out loud. “To initiate a diagnostic once requested, the Gooseberry Operator – that’s you- needs to acquire the consent of the Disorganizer’s owner. They must be informed on the terms and conditions of service and agree to them, before we can proceed.”

“But he sent me here to do it!”

“So you have to go back and read… This…” he pointed at a part on the paper that was even smaller than the rest of it, “…to Sir Samuel. And he needs to say yes.” He said, trying to make his relief seem less obvious to the imp. “For privacy reasons, it says it right here.”

“So you’re tellin’ me I have to run back to Mr Vimes and tell ‘im all that and he has to say yes and then I has to come back?” the imp replied, looking less than excited with the concept.

“Yes. Look, it’s for privacy reasons,” Billy said, trying to make it sound as important as he could. “A man like Sir Samuel, well! I’m sure he thinks his privacy’s very important, don’t you? Do you want him to think you don’t take it seriously?”

The imp considered this. Then he sighed in defeat. Obviously, Billy would not do anything more before he’d run back to the Watch house and returned. So he nodded reluctantly, and bolted away.

“Bingeley-bingeley beeeep, beeeeep, beeeeeep!”

Billy Hovel looked at the imp as he ran away, and began considering on how to make his own escape. Reminding himself of just who the Gooseberry belonged to, he quickly dismissed the idea, and began to read the user manual.

\----------------------

Commander Vimes of the City Watch was not having a good morning. First of all, Nobby was gone to one of his grannies’ funerals, which made Fred Colon difficult to maneuver into another patrol and required delicate diplomacy.

Secondly, he had just been invited to a banquet by Lord Vetinari himself, a fact that Sibyl had been more than happy to announce, as she aired his ducal regalia. He had not seen the invitation himself, but he was certain it would have been exceptionally polite. It probably referred to him by all his given titles. It could say something like, “your Grace’s presence would be a great honour” or even, Gods forbid, the words “at your pleasure” could have been used, and he was not ready to read that sort of thing before his morning shave.

Thirdly, his damn Gooseberry had been giving him the wrong information all morning. He’d just managed to get used to it telling him his appointments, and it had been mixing them all up. The dates were wrong. The people were wrong. The times were wrong. He knew they were wrong, because he remembered his own appointments, but he had begun to doubt himself, and that was the last thing Sam Vimes needed on a day like this. So he had told the Gooseberry that it was wrong, and after a brief argument with the imp, it had offered to run along to the University for a checkup. Sam had agreed to this, since it would be useless to him anyway.

He took a cigar from its case, and slowly, ceremoniously lit it, drawing in a thick puff of smoke. Then he blew it out, glanced at the mountain of paperwork that separated him from any unfortunate person he happened to have an appointment with, and took a single piece of paper out of it, starting to read. Sam Vimes was bored, and this was a dangerous thing to anyone who knew him. It was Nobby’s strategically placed leave notice. Balancing his cigar between his teeth, he signed it, before hearing, from afar, the dreaded sound:

“Bingley bing! Beep! Bingeley-bingeley be-haaah… haaah…beep!” The imp made a pause outside the door, before rushing into his office. “Haah… You need to agree to… terms.. and conditions, guv...!” it said, climbing up the desk and onto the mass of papers.

“Excuse me?” Vimes asked, taking the cigar out of his mouth to look at the small creature aching to catch his breath.

“You need to… Agree to terms and conditions o’ service. For privacy reasons, the lad at the University said… He said I need to say them to you and you need to say yes before he can figure out wha’s wrong with me.”

The naturally suspicious mind of a copper was immediately repelled by agreeing to anything he wasn’t informed on[3]. On the other hand, for some reason, he had the urge to say yes without ever finding out. But his curiosity and boredom got the better of him. “Fine. What are the… terms and conditions?”

“Uh… Clause one o’ the agreement… These terms and conditions outline the rules an’ regulations for the use of Disorganizer 3.0 Gooseberry. By usin’ this product we assume you accept these terms and conditions. Do not… Do not… Oh, _bugger._ I forgot what it said!”

Sam Vimes stared at the Disorganizer in something between pity and wonder. He put his cigar back in his mouth, and drew in a deep puff of smoke. “You wanna go back and write it down?” he offered, mostly because he did not want the imp to be in his office anymore.

“Yessir,” the imp replied, looking terribly embarrassed.

“Right. Off you go.” He said, picking up the next paper in the pile with the care of an engineer disarming a mine, as the imp composed himself and took off running.

_“Bingeley bing! Beep beep! Bingeley bingeley-” _

Vimes looked at the paper in front of him with great care, but the letters did not seem to come into focus. He lowered it onto the pile, and stood up slowly, lowering his cigar into an overloaded ashtray. He needed to take a walk. “Sergeant Colon!” he shouted. “We’re going on patrol.”

[1] This is highly unusual. The usual direction followed in relation to the Thaumatological Park is away, with explosive speed.

[2] Or trolls, or dwarfs, or vampires, werewolves, zombies and many others; Ankh-Morpork was a melting pot of all sorts of species.

[3] In Ankh-Morpork, city of a million contracts, this effect was doubled. Putting your signature on a piece of paper, or someone bringing up the word “consent” was immediately a red flag, usually planted upon a hill of economic criminal activity.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Next chapter hopefully soon, please let me know in the comments if you enjoyed!


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